"I question the integrity of anyone who wants to take cancer and make a mockery of it," Pamela Smitherman, who died in January, said in a soft and broken voice. "Mr. Sittenfeld, you’re just young and immature. Shame on you Mr. Sittenfeld for talking about me."

It was a stunning twist in the nasty ongoing power struggle between Smitherman and Sittenfeld, third-term councilmen who've been jockeying since the 2017 election to be Mayor John Cranley's successor.

Frankly, it's hard not to hear the Smitherman tape as anything other than political given the backdrop of the 2021 mayor's race.

Everyone grieves in their own way, and maybe Smitherman believes in his heart that releasing the audio is not political. Maybe Smitherman's deep disdain for Sittenfeld is really more personal than political. Maybe Smitherman is just exhausted after being his wife's primary caretaker for nearly two years.

Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman praises first responders during a Cincinnati City Council Law and Public Safety Committee meeting on Monday, Sept. 17, 2018, at Cincinnati City Hall in Cincinnati. (Photo: Albert Cesare, )

I so badly want to give Smitherman the benefit of the doubt. He's a genuine guy who is hurting. Nobody wants to criticize someone whose wife just died, but it's difficult not to wonder about the timing and motives behind releasing the audio.

It’s painful to listen to. It's sad that these were some of the last words of a beautiful woman. Smitherman supporters, Republicans and Democrats, contacted me on Tuesday saying they were dumbfounded and saw this as exploitation. They questioned why Smitherman would put his family through such a public ordeal.

The audio came out four days after Sittenfeld and Council's four other progressive Democrats were in court for illegally conducting secret meetings via text messages. As part of the lawsuit, the city was required to release more than 25,000 individual text messages between Sittenfeld and the other so-called "gang of five" members.

For Smitherman, the smoking gun was a January 2018 text exchange between Sittenfeld and Councilman Chris Seelbach. I don't need to rehash all of it, but Sittenfeld and Seelbach discussed that they thought Smitherman was using his "dying wife" for political gain.

"It really is grotesque," Sittenfeld texted. "Using that for a political agenda is actually staggering."

Smitherman has called it a "low point in Cincinnati politics," but I'm not so sure. City Hall is a bottomless gutter, and Smitherman and Sittenfeld have yet to prove they're willing to move away from win-at-all-costs politics.

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A respected political insider told me a few years ago that there are three people at City Hall who calculate their every move: Cranley, Smitherman and Sittenfeld. Who knows what else is going to happen in the next 32 months leading up to November 2021.

I took Sittenfeld's text as more of a slam on Smitherman himself. But the vice mayor – who somehow obtained the text exchange or heard about it months ago – spent a lot of energy telling anyone who would listen that Sittenfeld had said something horribly disparaging about Pamela Smitherman.

Sittenfeld deserves to be criticized for the callous text. He brought on this entire mess by orchestrating the illegal meetings. Sittenfeld then refused to settle the case last summer, and instead one of his political allies filed a counter lawsuit seeking text messages and emails from Smitherman and his Council coalition.

The lawsuit, which was dropped months later, prompted Pamela to record her message, Christopher Smitherman told Politics Extra. “It really sent my wife over the top," he said. "She was mentally harmed by that litigation.”

Smitherman also said he wanted Sittenfeld to personally apologize to him for the text. Sittenfeld should apologize, but that needs to be a private moment. It needs to be sincere.

Smitherman made his points clear in media interviews. Really, he didn't have to say anything. He was on the high road. He has a treasure trove of text messages that expose Sittenfeld as arrogant, two-faced and sophomoric. There's enough attack-ad fodder there for the next 10 elections.

So why go the extra step to release the audio? Ironically, Smitherman on Monday night seemed to fumble away the moral high ground and prove Sittenfeld's point. It sure looks political.